A. Field of the Invention
Embodiments consistent with the present invention relate to a medical image diagnosis apparatus and an image data processing apparatus that can generate and display efficacious therapy assist data for a tumor (cancer) therapy.
B. Background of the Invention
Recently, with developments of a living body data detection unit and an operation process units operating at high speeds and with high level functions, medical image diagnosis using such as an X-ray computer tomography (CT) apparatus or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus can acquire 3 dimensional data (volume data) in a short time. Consequently, such a medical diagnosis can perform early recognition of malignant tumors, such as a liver cancer. Generally, therapy methods for malignant tumors by using such medical image diagnosis are decided based on tumor numbers, tumor sizes and existence or non-existence of vessel invasions into blood vessels and lymph vessels adjacent to the tumor (hereinafter, referred to as “adjacent vascular”) and a progress level of the vascular invasion.
Thus, the differential diagnosis for a tumor is performed based on the tumor numbers, tumor sizes and vessel invasions. For instance, since the vessel invasion is a prognostic factor for a liver cancer, the pre-treatment diagnosis for a vessel invasion, in particular, a portal invasion is extremely important for deciding the therapy policy.
Further, an accuracy of the recent differential diagnosis for a tumor has largely improved by observing image data acquired through a patient who is dosed with an contrast enhance agent. For instance, a contrast enhance agent for the ultrasound wave imaging, such as Sonazoid and a contrast enhance agent for the MR imaging, such as GD-EOB-DTPA have been developed for displaying a liver cancer with enhanced contrast. Further, it has been proposed to differentiate an extent of the tumor and a grade of the tumor malignancy by extracting 3D image data of the tumor that is enhanced by the contrast enhance agent. For instance, a differential diagnosis supporting method for a tumor has been proposed by performing automatic analysis of brightness variation of image patterns that appear in the tumor regions due to the inflow of the contrast enhance agent (for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication 2010-5263).
However, the proposed differential diagnosis for a tumor by using the contrast enhance agent has mainly observed the extent of the tumor and the grade of malignancy based on blood flowing status in the tumor itself. Thus, the proposed differential diagnosis for a tumor cannot obtain the prognostic factor of vascular invasion data adjacent the tumor. Consequently, it has been very difficult to decide the most appropriate therapy for the tumor.